What she just said...

Occupy Wall Street protestor using something other than a manila colored pizza box to denounce the corrupt state of affairs that is now America's corporate plutocracy.

***

The topics inveighed by the left are vast and given the MSM's collusion in disseminating propaganda and controlling the public narrative on subjects of interest to the corporate state, usually very little coherent messaging makes it into the public consciousness.  However, people across the world, not just in authoritarian countries, are protesting en mass to the reckless and destructive practices of our authoritarian and/or corporate overlords.  Unlike the bullshit machine during the Iraq invasion where the venal and pliant press stenographed the Bush imperium's falsehoods on Iraqi mushroom clouds and fantastical weapons of mass destruction, the fruits of our economic discord are apparent for all to see.  The nations of the world are sliding into a new period of stagnation and decline.  Unemployment, social mobility, declining wages, and reduced prosperity are evident for all to see.  While society crumbles, multinational corporations are sitting on trillions of dollars of liquid capital, financial houses are given nearly unlimited protection by the state for their incompetence, and the wealthiest beneficiaries of the past 30-years of deregulation and financialization of western economies bemoan any increase in their tax rates.

The elite are firmly aware that for them to stay in power demands that the masses are fully unaware of how dire a situation they are in.  Institutional propagandists denounce the protestors as "dangerous" and predicated on mob rule.  Many are asking what the objectives of the movement are about (psst... its about greedy stupid bankers and their congressional whores, motherfucker!).  Daniel Indiviglio at The Atlantic is already calling the protests a waste of time, given that they are unfocused, the financial industry owns congress, and of course the big lie, that America really, really needs behemoth "to big to fail" monstrosities like Bank of America, Citibank, or Goldman Sachs, because as he states, the rest of the economy is just useless unproductive crap. To enforce the objectives of the corporate state, NY city police department was more than happy in assaulting, brutalizing, and arresting innocent civilians who exercised their first amendment rights.  This is nothing new for the NYPD, which has a long record (i.e. the 2004 Republican presidential election convention) of crushing pubic dissidence and violating the civil rights of protestors.

Many people realize the system is fundamentally rigged against them and the composition of the protestors and their supporters reflects this fact:

The crowd—while represented widely in the media as white, liberal college kids—is surprisingly diverse, including raging grannies, street kids, union workers, professors, ex-bankers, longtime activists, human rights lawyers, Native American band members and ex-military. Political views span the spectrum, from anarchist to right-wing libertarian—complicating efforts toward any kind of unifying objective or mantra.

Chris Hedges, Pulitzer prize winning journalist and author, had this to say about the occupation:

The real people who are scared are the power elite. Of course, they’re trying to make you scared and us scared. But I can tell you, having been a reporter for the New York Times, that on the inside they’re very, very frightened. They do not want movements like this to grow, and they understand on some level — whether it’s subconscious or, in other cases, even overt — that the criminal class in this country has seized power.

I am not optimistic that any particular resistance to the corporate state can succeed in changing the current trends.   If history is a guide, it is more likely that the people will turn on those protesting and disclosing the rampant corruption, rather than on their own imbecile leaders.  As long as people remain confused, uneducated, and ignorant to the current situation, the crypto-fascists, corporate fraud-mongers, and militarists driving policy will remain in the driver's seat.

Quote of the day: Tom Ricks on Fox News

I think Fox may be the most destructive force in American society nowadays, basically pouring poison into the stream of our political discourse.

- Tom Ricks, "Fox News Scoop!"

As this blog has been discussing for years, the function of the media is not to inform, but to deform reality for the benefit of the ruling class.  In this context, the nature of the news is by definition propaganda and its value, just as Pravda was during the years of the Soviet Union, is to leave the audience with a specific perspective that benefits the powerful.  In the USSR it was the communist party; in the USA it is the broad swath of business interests, including the military-industrial-surveillance complex, big-pharma, big-agri, the financial industry, the energy/chemicals sector, and Health care/insurance industry.  Fox News serves the interests of these people and is, as Ricks points out, a source of outright fraud that contaminates civil discourse with purposefully designed falsehoods and innuendo that plays into the biases and bigotry of their audience.

I found it interesting when Dick Cheney was vice-president, that he wanted the television in his hotel suites preset to Fox news.  Did that mean that he wanted to know what the minions were watching and thus assess the adequacy of his disinformation machine personally?  Or did it mean that Cheney was uninterested in hearing other perspectives of news, other than the one he and his cohorts had created?  Fox News represents the convoluted intersection of corporatism and government sponsored deceit.  This disinformation channel, because it wasn't interested in news but in pushing perspective, became a juggernaut in the decade of the zeroes. The conventional framework of left and right politics has broken down.  As a result, no longer is the prevalent conflict between liberals and conservatives.  Instead, the struggle for America has become a battle between an inverted form of totalitarianism, defined by corporatism, and the free flow of information espoused by those interested in democracy.

There are those who feel that if a person is given sufficient and credible information, they will invariably choose the most rational argument.  The fact that religion, debunked political ideologies, and failed economic models persist amongst the majority of Americans, suggests that this line of thinking is false.  Many people don't want to know the truth.  They want to be lied to and given ridiculous and fictitious narratives that make their lives tolerable.  The majority of the world want to exist under what Nietzsche described as a slave ethic.  A world where they are the constant victims, where forces external to themselves are always punishing them and depriving them of their just deserves.  In the minds of American conservatives, Fox News is their secular conduit to the outside world.  They can justify their ignorance and prejudices through presented falsehoods and manufactured realities, while all the time marching to the beat of their corporate masters.

Sino-Forest faces more scrutiny

The beleaguered Chinese forestry company Sino-Forest has had its ratings withdrawn by Standard and Poor's (S&P) today subsequent to news that its Chairman and Chief executive Alan Chan has resigned.  S&P states that the charges laid against Sino-Forest are most likely true and as such, it is forced to de-list.  Moody's Investors Service on the other hand has cut Sino-Forest's rating "to Caa1 from B1 and warned it was continuing its review of the company for further downgrade."

This blog earlier wrote an article describing the underlying fraud and failures of corporate governance associated with Sino-Forest.  In the days ahead there will be plenty of finger-waving at the company and its managers. The fact that corporate fraud  is involved is hardly new.  The tool most used by white-collar criminals is accounting gimmickry to conceal nefarious activities that enrich the owners and/or management.  I have written previously on the wide-spread corruption within China and prevalent ethos of fraud within America's most vaunted institutions, such as AIG, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Big Pharma, and Moody's.  The fact remains that China is learning from the Master, the United States of America, when it comes to engaging in corporate malfeasance.

The questions that need to be addressed are:

1. Are any rating agencies actually capable of rating any company's true credit worthiness?
2. Why are accounting agencies constantly failing to detect this level of deception?
3. Why aren't agencies such as the the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) given more resources and talent to investigate and prevent systematic corruption within its jurisdiction?
4. Why aren't Canadian governments more vigilant in prosecuting corporate criminals?
5. Why aren't US governments more vigilant in prosecuting corporate criminals?
6. Why are so few white-collared criminals prosecuted and furthermore found guilty in both Canada and the USA?

Only once the public begins to ask and demand answers to these questions, will substantial change occur.

Sino-Forest just another example of Chinese fraud

According to news reports (NY Times and Toronto Star), the once highly traded Chinese forestry company Sino-Forest has come under the examination by the Ontario Securities Commission for "fraudulently inflating its revenue and exaggerating the extent of its timber holdings."

The story follows a general trend that has become all too normal. Corporations attempt to inflate their earnings and value through shady accounting and off-sheet intermediaries.  The purpose, just as in other notable cases, is to exploit ignorant investors into the next so-called big thing. 

In Canada, the obvious comparison is Bre-X, a Canadian mining company that claimed that it discovered copious reserves of gold within Indonesia, during the mid-90's.  Independent investigations into the company's claims found that their initial findings were falsified.  The collapse of Bre-X lead to billions of dollars in losses for institutional investors, including $45 million for the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement board, $70 million of the Quebec Public Sector Pension fund, and $100 million for the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan.  No criminal charges have ever been laid in this debacle.

The American corollary is of course Enron, the company that defined the roaring 90's and the incipient corporate crime wave that has made a complete mockery of Anglo-American capitalism.   It was discovered that the company had created numerous offshore entities that were used "for planning and avoidance of taxes, raising the profitability of a business."  The totality of the expansive fraud committed by management and energy-traders resulted at the time the largest Chapter-11 bankruptcy in the history of the USA, the collapse of the accounting firm Arthur Anderson, and the introduction of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.

In the case of Sino-Forest, in June 2011 it was described by Muddy Waters Research, an investment research firm, that the company was a “multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme” that was “accompanied by substantial theft.”  In addition,

A reporter for The Globe and Mail of Toronto subsequently spent two weeks visiting various properties ostensibly owned or controlled by Sino-Forest and its subsidiaries. It proved to be a trek that frequently led him to nonexistent addresses and empty offices. Like Muddy Waters, the newspaper also found evidence that Sino-Forest had greatly inflated the size of its forestry assets.

The accountants of Sino-Forest, Ernst Young Canada, at this moment are conveniently being given distance from the fiasco, by being allowed to claim "geographical and cultural differences" in understanding the Chinese market.  Given that Sino-Forest's management and operations are all in China, it raises the question whether Canadian accountants and regulators have the competence and ability to protect investors from unscrupulous foreign operations.

According to Forbes magazine, the SEC and PCAOB have been reviewing companies that operate in China but are traded in American markets and have found similar situations.

In the past six months alone, more than 25 New York-listed Chinese companies have disclosed accounting discrepancies or seen their auditors resign. In the process, questions have been raised about the strength of governance and financial oversight at many small-cap Chinese companies. In the past year, Nasdaq and NYSE Euronext have halted trading in the shares of more than 20 small and micro-cap Chinese companies. Five Chinese companies have been de-listed.

As bad as corporate governance is in North America, the Chinese are considerably worst in providing independent and qualified directors.  In the case of Sino-Forest, none of the directors had any experience in the forestry industry or competentence in risk management.

As for Canada, it is obvious that the Ontario Securities Commission is clearly incapable to adequately investigating all the corporate crime that potentially exists under its mandate.  Richard Powers, a business law professor at the University of Toronto, has stated that situations like Sino-Forest will force regulators to evaluate the, "practice of letting companies acquire dormant shell companies to list on the stock exchange."  Until governments get serious about giving teeth and muscle to financial regulators, fraud -whether it emanated domestically or via foreign nationals- will only continue to persist to the detriment of the market as a whole.

Where's my Government Subsidy!

I too wish the benevolent hand of government largess would visit me.  Subsidies, bailouts, and friendly handshakes as the taxes of the minions are redirected into my coffers.

Why shouldn't I with my friendly neighborhood politician be able to run a business model solely predicated on how much I can extort out of the public?

Why care about customer relations, effective management, cost-controls, and all those petty matters, when I can have a member of the legislative branch simply re-write the laws so I don't have to pay taxes, don't have to concern myself about environmental or labor laws, and don't have to worry about those things that all those small people have to.

Banks, energy companies, utilities, telecommunications, military industrial, surveillance state, big pharma, private education, corporate agriculture,... etc, all feeding handsomely at the trough.

The "Hammer" sentenced to the Slammer!

Tom Delay, former Republican majority leader, was sentenced yesterday to three years imprisonment for his involvement "for illegally plotting to funnel corporate contributions to Texas legislative candidates." The Washington Post has a complete report on the sentence. Additional discussion of Republican party corruption can be found in these previous posts: here, here, and here.

Delay to the very end complained he was an innocent man, who was simply doing what everyone else was doing. Maybe that's the problem Tommy! All you assholes up on the hill are doing everything, but what you're supposed to be doing; which is being public servants engaged in running the government on behalf of the people and not the corporations.

Consider what Texas prosecutors had to say about Delay and Delay's request that he only be subject to probation and community service.

"Conservative values . . . are supposed to include obeying the laws of the state and taking personal responsibility," [Lead prosecutor Gary] Cobb said. If DeLay received only probation, Cobb warned the judge, he would "wear that probation" like Jesus and call himself a martyr.

A colleague, prosecutor Steve Brand, separately claimed at the hearing that probation would not only send the wrong message to other members of Congress, but would signal to working-class citizens that DeLay was treated lightly just because he wore "a suit and a tie." He said that DeLay's repeated claims in a recent memoir that he did nothing improper were "the equivalent of a 'screw you' to the system."

Delay's unethical behavior and institutional corruption serve as a reminder as to the true nature of the system of governance that exists in Washington.  Although his arrest, prosecution, and sentencing are a small victory against the forces of corruption.  The beast still lives on with venal politicians -on both sides of the aisle- doing the bidding of their paymasters, lobbyists flooding the hallways of congress, a revolving door between government officials and businesses, and an electoral system that is hijacked by both parties.

The revolving door between Government and Big Business

The New York Times reported earlier in December that Peter Orszag, Obama's first budget director, joined Citibank's investment banking group as a vice chairman.  Mr. Orszag joins a long list of former White House officials who have moved from government and into the board room's of America's largest corporations.

Mr. Orszag’s actual duties are murky at best. He is expected to draw on his deep knowledge of public sector financial issues and his experience overseeing the federal budget to counsel Citi’s clients on various policy actions. He is also expected to be something of a corporate rainmaker.

The Economist magazine evaluates the transaction and considers the entire situation an unsuitable arrangement that enforces perceptions of Washingtonian corruption.

Not only is the revolving door between Washington and Wall Street unseemly, its frictionless gliding action suggests corruption is built right into the interface between our government and our great profit-seeking institutions.

James Fallows over at The Atlantic magazine is quoted by the Economist and relays is own thoughts on the matter.

But in the grander scheme, his move illustrates something that is just wrong. The idea that someone would help plan, advocate, and carry out an economic policy that played such a crucial role in the survival of a financial institution—and then, less than two years after his Administration took office, would take a job that (a) exemplifies the growing disparities the Administration says it's trying to correct and (b) unavoidably will call on knowledge and contacts Orszag developed while in recent public service—this says something bad about what is taken for granted in American public life.

When we notice similar patterns in other countries—for instance, how many offspring and in-laws of senior Chinese Communist officials have become very, very rich—we are quick to draw conclusions about structural injustices. Americans may not "notice" Orszag-like migrations, in the sense of devoting big news coverage to them. But these stories pile up in the background to create a broad American sense that politics is rigged, and opportunity too.

The system as I have elaborated in a number of previous posts (ex. here, here, here, here, and here) is corrupt.  Here is a man with all the necessary knowledge on how to circumvent and manipulate whatever limited and existing impediments there are and will use that to his new employer's maximum benefit.  Robert Rubin, former Treasury Secretary under Clinton, joined Citibank to become a senior adviser and board member, with a $10 million a year paycheck with no management responsibility.  Carlos Gutierrez, a former commerce secretary under President George W. Bush, will join Citibank alongside Mr. Orszag, "to counsel Citi’s clients on various policy actions."

It is clear that the government is run by persons whose only interest is in using government to get rich quickly. We need to stop wasting our time asking whether the system is broken; it is.  The real question is how much worst is it going to get before the whole corpulent mess implodes?

Ritholtz on the rise of the Corporatocracy

Over the past 30-years both Republican and Democratic parties have drifted from their traditional positions towards extreme stances. Throughout this period pro-corporate policies that catered to the balance sheets of multinationals and those with enough cash to pay-to-play, have defined the legislative agendas of both federal and state politicians. Left-wing political activists, like Ralph Nader, have been calling Washington D.C. "corporate occupied territory" for the past two decades. Consider the following:

• The revolving door between corporate officers and government employees has become the norm.
• A study conducted in 2005 by Public Citizen found that from 1998, "43 percent of the 198 members of Congress who left government to join private life have registered to lobby."
• Politicians have become indentured servants to special interest groups and major lobbyists in the financial/insurance industries, the military-industrial complex, the energy/ chemicals sector, big-pharma, corporate agricultural, and the communications/ electronics industries.
• Legislation is often written directly by lobbyists and submitted to congressmen and state legislators for direct approval.  Google CEO, Eric Schmidt, told The Atlantic magazine, "The average American doesn't realize how much of the laws are written by lobbyists... It's shocking how the system actually works."
• "Corruption, in its institutional sense, denotes the degeneration of republican forms of government into despotism, and typically comes about when the private ends of a narrow faction of citizens succeed in capturing the engines of government." (Harper's, Speak, Money, Oct. 2010)
• The Brookings Institute calls "The 5-4 conservative majority decision in Citizens United vs. the Federal Election Commission that struck many decades of law and precedent [to] likely go down in history as one of the Supreme Court's most egregious exercises of judicial activism."  The Roberts court, "dismissed the legitimacy of laws... equated the free speech protections of individuals and corporations in spite of countless laws and precedents that insisted on meaningful differences."
• A USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll taken Dec. 16-18, 2005 found that 49% of American adults say they believe "most members of Congress are corrupt."
• The Republicans K-street project, was a project by now convicted former congressman Tom Delay to coerce lobbying firms to "hire Republicans in top positions, and to reward loyal GOP lobbyists with access to influential officials."
• Super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff, was sentenced in 2006 for conspiracy, fraud, and tax evasion related to his lobbying efforts

Barry Ritholtz, CEO of FusionIQ (an investment firm) and primary blogger at The Big Picture tells his readers that:

In 2009 and 2010, I learned that Corporate America took over the political process via their exhaustive lobbying efforts. What was once a Democracy is now a Corporatocracy... Politicians do the bidding not for the people, but for the corporate establishment. Those people who want to blame the barking, snarling government for all the woes of the world do not want you to look further up the leash to see who is giving the commands. These corporate apologists pretend to be philosophers, but in reality they are mere Fellatrix, bought and paid for by their lords and masters.

We've reached a turning point.  When growth was evident, jobs were available, and cheap accessible credit abounded, everyone was happy and willing to keep dancing to the same tune. Now that the bill is past due and we're looking at decade of low growth or worst, investors and everyday persons on both the right and the left are seeing the system for what it is.  Ritholtz acknowledges that we were warned by the founding fathers, Eisenhower on the military-industrial complex, and countless other critics about the perils of what philosopher Sheldon Wolin has described as inverted totalitarianism.

The corporate state does not find its expression in a demagogue or charismatic leader. It is defined by the anonymity and facelessness of the corporation.

The viciousness and lawlessness of the corporatocracy knows no bounds. Like Orwell's 1984, those in control have no interest in the betterment of mankind or pursuing nationalistic agendas, they are solely interested in power for power's sake. And in the polluted materialistic cesspool that is modern existence, that power is obtained through the collection and amassment of wealth and money.

Casino Jack Movie Trailer

Sen. Sanders on the Greed of the Plutocrats

Republican Corruption Tales...

In the past two weeks, two particular incidents have occurred that crystallizes the level of corruption and nepotism within the ranks of America's conservative party and big business interests.

The first involves the man who came to represent Republican corruption across America during the 2006 election; former Texas congressman and majority house leader Tom Delay. In 2005, Delay known on the Hill as "the hammer" for his harsh lobbying and legislative practices, was indicated for money-laundering and evading Texas anti-corruption laws. Two weeks ago, a jury in Austin, Texas, after 19-hours of deliberations found him guilty.

The NY Times reports on the case:

The verdict ends the latest chapter in a long legal battle that forced Mr. DeLay to step down. The trial also opened a window on the world of campaign financing, as jurors heard testimony about large contributions flowing to Mr. DeLay from corporations seeking to influence him, and about junkets to luxury resorts where the congressman would rub shoulders with lobbyists in return for donations.

Delay was initially charged for violating Texas campaign finance laws, but prosecutors realizing it would be impossible to convict him under these terms decided to prosecute him under a 1903 law, in which Texas prohibited corporations from giving money to candidates directly or indirectly. The details surrounding Mr. Delay participating in a transfer of money from private donors to his PAC to Texas candidates have never been in question.  What the jury determined though is that Delay actively engaged in flouting state laws to subvert democracy and manipulate state elections in favor of Republican candidates.

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The second case involves another No.2 man amongst the conservative machine.  Charges of international corruption have been made against the man most responsible for the invasion of Iraq, the institution of torture as American foreign policy, and extending a regulatory framework that led to the greatest economic collapse in American history since the Great Depression; former Vice President Richard "go fuck yourself" Cheney!

Prior to becoming Dubya's VP, Cheney was Chairman of the Texas based energy services company Haliburton.  According to reports in the press, Cheney will be "indicted in a Nigerian bribery case as part of an investigation into an alleged $180 million bribery scandal."  The charges stem from the systemic bribery amongst Nigerian custom officials on behalf of Royal Dutch Shell Plc., one of the world's largest oil and gas company's.  The charges have furthermore, lead Interpol to issue an arrest warrant for him.

The likelihood of Dick Cheney being extradited to Nigeria or a foreign court is zero.  However, the fact remains that the world of tomorrow will be a very different place than it currently is and all the imperial might will not protect all of the members of the Bush junta into perpetuity for the domestic and international crimes they have committed.  Just as Henry Kissinger is unable to visit numerous countries for his involvement in multiple cases of state terrorism and criminality, so will these people be forced to limit their visits to states who have an independent judiciary that does not take matters such as, crimes against humanity lightly.

GOP's memo to America's unemployed: Drop Dead!

Stephen Pearlstein, business columnist for the Washington Post, recently wrote an enormously useful post in which he takes apart the Republican stance on the economy, the Federal Reserve, and the current unemployment situation across America.

He first establishes the governing philosophy of the party of 'no' since the mid-term elections:

Only two weeks after the midterm election, it seems clear that the 2012 campaign has begun. For too many Republicans, the aim is to politicize policy, trash the institutions of government and intimidate anyone who might disagree with their radical ideology.

The Republican party's public mantra has long been low taxes, smaller government, and accountability.  If anyone can find a Republican that has pursued this trifecta consistently while in congress I'd like to know, because the reality is that they have pursued low taxes for corporations and the very rich, while irresponsibly failing to engage in concomitant spending cuts.  Conservative economist Milton Friedman said, "for the government to spend is for the government to tax."  So, despite their claims, what Republicans are actually doing is shifting the tax burden, "explicitly or implicitly to tax somebody, either in the present or the future, either directly or indirectly, to pay for that purchase." They counter that that is not true, because the tax-cuts magically pay for themselves.  Again, this supply side voodoo-economics, has been shown to yield either no or minimal value to the economy and therefore do not pay for themselves.  For example, analysis of George W. Bush's tax cuts indicate that it produced an insignificant level of economic growth during his presidency. Hence, this is just the attempt of one group of people to evade paying taxes and force another group to subsidize their excesses.

Pearlstein recognizing the fallacy of the Republican tax-cut and spend mantra, estimates the impact of not extending the Bush tax cuts to small cash flow-through businesses and people earning beyond $250,000.

The macro view, from the forecasting firm Macroeconomic Advisers of St. Louis, is that not extending tax cuts for high-income households would reduce gross domestic product growth by - drumroll here - two-tenths of one percent in each of the next two years. And the difference in the unemployment rate? A whopping one tenth of one percent!

The impact of letting the richest people in the country pay the same taxes on the top tier of their income, as what they were paying during the Clinton administration in regards to the overall economy, is virtually negligible.

Regardless of the context, the same failed policies are trotted out as a panacea to every economic situation. And here is where the standard argument becomes exceptionally ugly. Knowing that their policies have failed and have lead to the harshest economic downturn since the Great Depression, Republicans are demanding that not only that their rich-friends, who have been on a tax vacation for the past decade, not be further taxed, but that those who are unemployed "drop dead."  In their devious minds, they are now attacking the Federal Reserve for pursuing monetary policies that leads to full employment. Whereas these same miscreants didn't attack the Fed when it was bailing out their fat-cat friends on Wall Street and creating a firewall of secrecy that concealed the extent of the criminality between big business and the government when Republicans were in power. Their hypocrisy is endless.

Get sick; drop dead.
Need help in paying for a family member's health care; let them drop dead.
Need to upgrade your skills at college to get a job; drop dead.
Cannot find a job and you've used up your savings; drop dead.
Need help preventing foreclosure on your home; drop dead.

Obama's failure and the floundering of the American economy is their ultimate objective. In their minds the death of the American dream is their stepping stone back into power. Republicans are traitors to everything that the country is supposed to represent.

Charlie Rose interviews Charles Ferguson of the "Inside Job"

http://www.charlierose.com/view/content/11321

The above link is to a recent interview (29 November 2010) between Charlie Rose and Charles Ferguson who produced the well reviewed documentary on the origins of the financial collapse of 2008 and the subsequent global bailout of the financial industry by governments across the world.

He states specifically, "the film is about the systemic corruption of the United States by the financial industry and the consequences of that systemic corruption."

In the interview Ferguson makes it clear that the corruption of America and its legislative and regulatory processes are profound.  He makes the case that much of what happened would not have occurred if the businessmen behind these monolithic investment banks were not so incompetent and blinded by greed and the US government had not abdicated its role, as an agent for fairness, in properly regulating the whole industry.  The actions taken by the government was to save the banks and the elite bankers, while allowing the rest of the population to fend for itself.  The bankers, with the exception of Lehman Brothers, were not made to make any sacrifices.

Ferguson further contends that "massive criminal fraud" was undertaken. Despite the nauseating proclamations by the financial industry and their media stooges, it is clear that both government and the largest corporations in America engaged in what may stand as the largest criminal event of the past quarter century. The reality is that none of these people, given the political climate and entrenched corruption of government, will be held accountable for their actions in destroying trillions of dollars of wealth, eliminating millions of jobs, and pushing families off the cliff.  When ordinary people lose their health care, lose their homes, lose their life savings, and end up destitute, the same people who caused this mayhem will snicker and call the rest of the population parasites!

I've said it numerous times on this blog, that only when people recognize the true nature of corporations in their society and begin to combat the force of coruption through monied politics, will things change.

Quote of the Day: Chomsky on the Financial Fraudsters

The capitalist class in the ’50s was sort of part of a social contract. It was part of the tenor of the times… Changes have taken place since then… In the financial institutions, which by now dominate the economic system, the management level repeatedly acts in ways which will destroy their own institutions if it’ll increase their benefits, and benefits are not small. You know, you take a look at the revenue of, say, Goldman Sachs – a very high percentage of it just goes to payment of management and bonuses. There was a time traditionally – say, GM in the 1950s – it was trying to develop a consumer base that would be loyal and lasting and they were thinking in terms of an institution that would remain and grow and thrive in the society. By now, a lot of the investment firms – bankers, hedge funds – are perfectly happy to destroy what they’re in and come out with huge, tremendous benefits. That’s a new stage of capitalism.

- Noam Chomsky on today's Casino-capitalists. (link: h/t Felix Salmon)

Matt Taibbi explains the Financial sector's hold on Democrats

I personally think the reason Rick Sanchez got cut from CNN was that he rubbed some of the MSM top honchos the wrong way during his time at the anchor desk.  Populism is fine for the plutocrats when it works to their advantage, as in the case of the ignorant and deranged Tea Party advocates.  However, when discussions of the collusion between those at the top of the economic pyramid (i.e. the banks) and government officials begin, which leads to the magnification of the nexus of institutional corruption, the grand-poobahs get antsy. 

Consider the above video with Sanchez and Rolling Stone magazine contributor and author Matt Taibbi, where the discussion veers into understanding the basis of the 2009 financial sector bailout pursued by the Obama administration. In it, Sanchez makes the connection that Washington DC is effectively corporate controlled territory. He notes that Goldman Sachs and other bankers wield inordinate levels of power over the legislative and executive branches and control the system through campaign contributions to both parties and the installation of their people into key government portfolios. There was no requirement for Obama to bring people like Larry Summers, who had been an architect of the deregulatory fiasco of the 1990's that lead to this current economic malaise, into the fold.  There was no requirement to appoint Tim Geithner as Secretary of the Treasury or to re-appoint Ben Bernanke, other than it appeased the poobahs on Wall Street.

For all the talk of change, the Obama administration made sure that corporate America knew that the new sheriff in town was going to be the same as the old one.  They let it be known that "Greed was still good," and regardless of how the economy reacted, all the merry sociopaths, looking down at us little people from the glass towers in the Financial District, would still get all their bonuses that would allow them to feed their insatiable want for coke, hookers, and good times.

All this nonsensical talk that Obama is somehow a socialist is the musings of truly stupid people.  The facts are plain to see that this administration is not terribly different than any of its Republican or Democratic predecessors.  The facts are also clear that it is the greedheads at the top of the financial food chain who have been the winners for the past 30 years.  When the next economic calamity arises in the near future, we'll see who gets saved again and who the ignorant masses will blame for it.

Glaxo Guilty of Selling Tainted and Defective Drugs

GlaxoSmithKline, a British pharmaceutical company, has been forced to pay $750 million (USD) "to settle criminal and civil complaints that the company for years knowingly sold contaminated baby ointment and an ineffective antidepressant."

The case was initiated by a former employee and whistle-blower who sought penalties against the company.  The NY Times elaborates on the nature of the crimes at their Puerto Rico facility:

This was GlaxoSmithKline’s premier manufacturing facility, producing $5.5 billion of product each year. But Ms. Eckard [the whistle-blower] soon discovered that quality control was a mess: the water system was contaminated; the air system allowed for cross-contamination between products; the warehouse was so overcrowded that rented vans were used for storage; the plant could not ensure the sterility of intravenous drugs for cancer; and pills of differing strengths were sometimes mixed in the same bottles.

Instead of heeding FDA warnings about QA/QC inadequacies of the facility and their own internal people's advice, GlaxoSmithKline either ignored and/or dismissed concerns.  Ms. Eckard, who was initially sent to lead "a team of 100 quality experts to fix problems," was stonewalled by management and then dismissed once she began to demand that products be recalled.  She will now earn for her part in the whistle-blower case, "$96 million from the federal government, and she will collect additional millions from states."

The circumstances surrounding this particular case are unlike previous situations. 

Nearly all previous cases against the industry involved illegal marketing. This is the first successful case ever to assert that a drug maker knowingly sold contaminated products.

Whereas in the past, big-pharma was tagged for deceptive marketing and off-label sales tactics, GSK engaged in the willful and knowing dissemination of tainted, ineffectual, and potentially dangerous drugs to the public. This failure of both GSK and the American government to regulate the company is another indictment of the laissez-faire deregulatory approach that highlighted the conservative dogma prevalent in the Bush years.  Furthermore, it decimates any specious arguments that importation of Canadian drugs are a threat to consumers.

Given that the profit sources for big-pharma are waning and that numerous lawsuits have been asserted against big-pharma for misleading patients and "defrauding federal and state governments" the entire health care bills pushed through by both the Bush and Obama administrations reeks of corruption.  These companies are clearly unable to actually provide quality drugs that benefit people. So instead of ramping up their R&D base to find new drugs, they fire scientists and engage in legislative trickery to extend the patent life of their already questionable drug performers and push onto the market products that are ineffective and potentially lethal.  These people are just evil.  Sick and dying people shouldn't have to worry about whether their doctor is in collusion with the drug company to push a useless product upon them.  Patients shouldn't have to worry if FDA "approved" medication is actually effective or instead going to make them more sick or even kill them.

Is this all America is about? Lying, cheating, and using the government to swindle dying people out of their life savings. While congress subsidizes big-pharma, agriculture corporations, the military-industrial state, and bails out the banking industry for the umpteenth time, what are you getting? Maybe you can find it in your bonus that comes in the form of less take home pay, less benefits, less social mobility, more hours working, or more of your taxes going to maintain the lifestyles of corporate lobbyists and the "masters of the universe"-crowd.

Wake up people!

Take the red pill people, and fucking wake up!

***

This blog has previously dissected and listed other areas of fraud and corruption by big-pharma:

• Novartis fined $422 Million
• Big-Pharma, perennial fraud-mongers
• Pfizer on eminant domain and corporate welfare (NY Times)
• The corruption of university bio-medical research (NY Times)

Open Advice to President Obama

Dear Barack,

I know you don't care what I think, with all those high-paid clowns dispensing all that brilliant strategy to you on how to piss-off those loser hippies who funded, supported, and fought for you across America in 2008, but here it is.

You're a bit like Bubba, in that despite all those flowery speeches about hope or being from a place called hope (who can get it straight anymore) you've given over the past few years, we really don't know what you believe.  I mean, the nihilists and brain-dead masses think you're a Marxist Fascist with ties to Kenyan revolutionaries.  I don't know what that means either, other than interpreting it as an odd way to just call you a nigger.  I've never really thought you were the second coming of FDR, but you were a better option than the Queen corporatist Madam Clinton.  People liked what you had to say and what you represented, but back then it mostly was about voting against eight hard and dismal years under the Bush junta.  However, you waffled and instead of steamrolling what remained of the right wing yahoo's and pushing through a progressive and liberal agenda, you coddled and capitulated to their bizarre demands.  Let's recap:

• Did exactly what Bush said he would do in ending the Iraq war; that being leaving 50K troops to babysit the Shia thugocracy in Baghdad.
• Escalated the Afghan war, which everyone has already admitted is lost.
• Caved into special interests in the health care bill, by eliminating the public option and preventing the  importation of drugs from Canada.
• Created a health care bill that would force individuals to purchase lame health care coverage and subsidise the crooked insurance companies.
• Pushed through a special debt committee, filled with right-wing ideologues and hacks demanding that Social Security be privatized under the guise of bi-partisanship.
• Bailed out your friends and big-donor buddies in the banks, but left the rest of the nation submerged with debt and ever-expanding (and now illegal) foreclosures
• Failed to prosecute any of the major players in the Bush junta for war crimes, crimes against humanity, violations of the Constitution, and numerous illegal acts and unethical behavior
• Advanced the post-911 security-surveillance state to new levels
• Advanced the military-industrial complex in the face of mounting debts and limited resources
• Let Israel make a complete mockery of you, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and your entire administration relating to the Palestinian issue
• Allowed the minority blue dog Democrats to dictate the terms of major legislation, so they could retain their congressional seats (which as every poll indicates, they won't)
• Put in charge Ken Salazar as Secretary of the Interior, effectively creating what others have referred to as Bush's 3rd term with respect to governmental regulation and resource management of public assets
• Colluded with BP to lie to the public on the scope and severity of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

People who voted for you, in the deluded belief that government could mend it ways, are looking at a moribund economy, a Democratic Party that is incapable of defending themselves against corrupt Republican and Tea Party slander, and a crypto-fascist uprising funded by the same assholes whose jobs and balance sheets you saved from complete Armageddon.  A lot of people said early on that you were playing three-dimensional chess and were way smarter than the rest of the dolts on the Hill.  It's pretty clear that not only don't you have game, but you're really not as bright as those Harvard and Columbia degrees might imply.

So Barack, if you want to do something meaningful, do yourself a favor and grow a couple, because this nonsense you've been pedalling for the past 21-months is getting tired and no one is going to vote for you if you keep selling the same recycled shit that Bush left behind on the White House's going-out of business sale in November 2008.

Fuck-you very much.

The Lifer.

Another Poisoned Prescription: Novartis Fined $422 Million for Fraud

Another year and another multi-million dollar fine and settlement from another Big Pharma corporation.  Novartis, which is headquartered in Switzerland, has agreed to pay $422.5 million, in order to settle criminal and civil investigations arising from the marketing of the antiseizure medicine Trileptal and five other drugs. 

The NY Times summarizes the billion dollar payouts that Big Pharma has agreed to in regards to criminal investigations conducted over the past decade:

Novartis joins a growing list of pharmaceutical companies that have settled government investigations into health care fraud in the last few years, including Pfizer, which paid $2.3 billion; Eli Lilly, $1.4 billion; Allergan, $600 million; AstraZeneca, $520 million; Bristol-Myers Squibb, $515 million; and Forest Laboratories, $313 million. Pfizer, Lilly, Allergan and Forest pleaded guilty to crimes in the cases.

Earlier this year I outlined in a previous blog entry the business practices and criminal endeavours pursued by Big Pharma and the medical community on an annual basis against consumers.  The above settlement list validates the fact that when the world's largest corporations are found engaging in criminal activities, little more than nuisance fines are levied against these multi-national predators.  The profits elicited from pushing either unproven or detrimental pharmaceuticals, via morally compromised physicians, far outweighs any financial fine that the US government is prepared to impose.

Andy Wyss, president of Novartis Pharmaceuticals, said that Novaritis would “continue its commitment to high standards of ethical business conduct and regulatory compliance in the sale and marketing of our products.”  For industry watchers, the current press release is a familiar issuance from the fraud-mongers in the pharmaceutical industry.

Erik Gordon, an assistant professor at the University of Michigan school of business who follows the drug industry, said it was “easy to stifle a chuckle” when the company announced a guilty plea and, in the same news release, promised to continue ethical conduct.

Prosecutors said top management at Novartis had approved illegal marketing from July 2000 to June 2004. No individual, however, was named or charged.

Given the unscrupulous and illegal behavior of these companies, it is only further telling that both Republicans and Democrats fall over themselves to placate and support these corporate criminals.  Instead of allowing Americans to purchase drugs from Canadian manufacturers, the spineless Obama administration blocked Americans from cross-border shopping and individual state governments from engaging in bulk purchases to reduce costs.  If the US Department of Justice was sincerely interested in preventing these recalcitrant criminals, whether in Big Pharma or Wall St., from repeating their actions, hundreds of corporate managers and board members would be forced to defend their actions in court.  Once the cost-benefit equation is shifted, only then will these miserable crony-capitalists be effectively dealt with.

Employee Health Insurance Changes

Kevin Drum at his blog over at MotherJones.com unloads the statistics related to the unsustainable increases in worker health insurance, for both the employer and employee over the past decade in America.  With individual increases in deductions, co-payments, and other ancillary charges, coupled with the fact that the average person's income has flat-lined or worst decreased during the past decade, America's middle class and low wage earners are seeing more of their income shunted towards paying for health care.

The problem with this arrangement, which I've discussed to some depth in a previous blog entry, is that the system is broken and without meaningful cost controls, strict penalties on those who engage in slothful and/or unhealthy lifestyles, and a shift towards re-aligning the American market to one that which exists in other Western nations, costs will continue to increase, the quality of service and the level of coverage will decrease, and the insurance companies in collusion with big-Pharma will reap the excessive profits.

Like everything in America these days, little attention is made towards reasonable and intelligent discourse.  Instead the dunces prattle on about imaginary enemies, irrelevant conflicts, and absurd realities in their Quixotic journey through life.  Attention to meaningful policies that affect all Americans, is jettisoned to make way for everyone's two-minutes of hate.  The right attacks liberal institutions, environmentalists, and all the secular evils for depriving them of their non-regulated Christian Eden.  The left bickers amongst themselves about gay-politics, token policy gestures made by the Obama White House, and the deceit of Democratic Party, while rarely challenging or stopping the crony-capitalists.

A Wall Street Government?

There is another name for a government by and for the corporations....

Yeah... it's that other F-word: Fascism.